April 11, 2010

Monday Make It: Needle Felted Ball Banner

There are sooooo many crafty things I would love to try. Needle felting is one technique that I did take a whirl at and I love it. I came across a book of the cutest needle felted items and I fell in love with all the neat things you can create. It is very forgiving and relatively easy to do.

This is your DIY project for the week: a cute needle felted ball banner...

I made a colorful and whimsical banner that hangs between two knobs on a piece of furniture in my living room. The great thing about this DIY is that you can alter it to fit your needs. Like I mentioned above, it is easy to do, but this project requires a little chunk of time depending on how long you need to make your banner. (Mine would have been perfect to make while watching a movie.)

What you need: wool roving (it comes in a variety of colors), a needle felting tool, DMC embroidery floss, a regular needle, beads, a beading needle, invisible thread and tiny (about 1") styrofoam balls. (All available at a craft store.)

I recommend watching this video if you have never needle felted before. Pay close attention the the 'stabbing' technique that is demonstrated (and please be careful because it does hurt if you stab yourself! LOL). The video demonstrates a flat needle felted project using a brush mat and a wider needle felting tool. You will be creating a three dimensional ball so you won't need the brush mat. I also recommend using a single needle tool like I show below.

To get started, select a color of wool roving and grab a styrofoam ball and the needle felting tool....

The idea is to completely cover the styrofoam ball with the wool roving and make a cute little ball shape....

Pull off just enough wool roving from the roll to cover the little ball (try to keep the amount of roving the same on each ball so your balls will have the same finished size)....

Wrap the roving around to encase the ball...

And then start stabbing! (Watch those fingers!) Hold the ball and roving in one hand and stab with the other....

Just keep stabbing and working an area. You will see it start to 'grab' on to the styrofoam ball. Move on the the next area and make your way around the ball until it is all even and neat.

You can do as few or as many as you need. And the color choices are up to you too. Customize! I like an odd number because that looks better to me....

Next you will need to gather the DMC embroidery floss in whatever color you like...

And the invisible thread and the beads if you'd like to add a bit of bling.

Start with the beads if you're going to add them. Add a nice long length (about two feet) of invisible thread to the beading needle and add pretty assorted beads to the needle felted balls...

Once the needle felted balls are all blinged-out you can string them onto the DMC embroidery thread (push the regular needle through the center of each ball)...

Make the embroidery thread long enough for your needs. You can slide the balls on the thread to position them...

I LOVE that. I was wondering...where do you get the wool to make the prjoects? Is it already all "combed out"? Dont know the correct wording I don't think. Do you know of any websites that explain pretty well how to do prjoects like that.?Lexie.